Shanghai 2015 finals preview: #RecurveSunday

Hot and humid, the compounds said the Shanghai arena had perfect conditions for archery. In perfect conditions, it will take something special to beat the Koreans – who are in every recurve final.

Here are our picks for recurve Sunday in Shanghai…

Recurve men’s individual gold medal match (afternoon session): KIM – KOR / KU – KOR

KIM Woojin takes on KU Bonchan, in the title all-Korean affair of Shanghai’s recurve finals afternoon.

KIM was top of all three of the Korean selection shoots this year – which have a reasonable claim to be the toughest recurve tournaments in the world – and was dominant in qualification until he was troubled in the quarter finals by Miguel ALVARINO, one of several strong Spanish performances this week.

KU dropped just two set points on his way to the final and is looking as strong as ever. The numbers say it should be KIM, but KU has arguably been better in the matches.

Advantage: KU

Recurve men’s individual bronze medal match (afternoon session): LEE – KOR / EGA AGATHA – INA

This bronze match-up will see world champion LEE Seungyun line-up against EGA AGATHA Riau of Indonesia, who managed to knock out the mighty OH Jin Hyek in the quarterfinals.

All the pressure is on the Korean here, who isn’t quite back up to his stratospheric 2013 standards – and Riau has shown talent and mettle in equal measure this week.

Advantage: EGA AGATHA

Recurve women’s individual gold medal match (afternoon session): KANG – KOR / CHOI – KOR

KANG Chae Young and CHOI Misun – the “new girls” on the Korean team – do battle in what should be an interesting match to see if either has a head-to-head advantage. They qualified in first and second place and deservedly contest the final here.

CHOI has just outscored KANG in individual qualification, and we think she might just have a sliver of an edge here.

Advantage: CHOI

Recurve women’s individual bronze medal match (afternoon session): KI – KOR / WINTER – GER

KI Bo Bae takes on Karina WINTER of Germany for the bronze. WINTER has been in strong form, but will have to up her game even further to beat KI, who sent six perfect ends down the range in qualification. It’s KI’s to lose – and she doesn’t lose very often.

Advantage: KI

Recurve mixed team gold medal match (afternoon session):  Korea / Japan

Korea and Japan will battle for the second time today. The Japanese archers playing runner-up to the Korean machine is a familiar tale at recent World Cups, and Japan will be immensely keen to claim some gold of their own. But with the Korean pair in some form here, it looks like this one will be flying back to Seoul on Monday.

Advantage: Korea

Recurve men’s team gold medal match (morning session):  Korea / Japan

The Korean men take on neighbours Japan in what could be an exciting match.

Korea should be strong favourites to beat the less consistent squad but Japan had gold in Shanghai last year. As recent events like Medellin 2014 and last year’s Asian Games proved, if you can rattle the Korean men, then it might just be possible to take them down.

If anything goes against the great white sharks, it’s this match.

Advantage: Japan

Recurve women’s team gold medal match (morning session): Korea / Germany

The Korean ladies face the German ladies in what may be a one-sided affair.

Germany have not shown us anything like the imperious form they were showing 18 months ago and were lucky to scrape through their semifinal (the scores weren’t particularly high), and this iteration of the Korean women’s team hasn’t shown a single chink in the armour yet.

Unless the German team raise their game and do something special, this will go one way very quickly indeed.

Advantage: Korea

Read more about Shanghai 2015.